


CALAMITY

by MangoPantsu



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Deadlock Gang, Gen, Platonic Relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-23
Updated: 2018-11-23
Packaged: 2019-08-28 07:18:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,030
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16718866
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MangoPantsu/pseuds/MangoPantsu
Summary: "She met Jesse McCree, and he made her laugh. That seemingly-permanent scowl on her face loosened up, and she felt herself relax around him."





	CALAMITY

**Author's Note:**

> this is my first OW fic contribution - just my take on the relationship between mccree and ashe. enjoy!

 

Elizabeth Caledonia Ashe never had a family.

Sure, she had people she shared DNA with, but none of them had ever even pretended to be what family's supposed to be. They thought they were the perfect parents, putting her in the best schools, giving her opportunities less wealthier families couldn't even dream of, but she never wanted any of that. She wanted a family - a mom to talk and laugh with, a dad to pick her up and spin her around when he sees her, to walk hand in hand with either parent with big smiles on each of their faces.

But as her father would say - "wish in one hand, spit in the other, see which one fills up faster."

She first tried acting out - in school, she'd backtalk the teachers, flunk classes, pick fights with the other kids until she landed herself in the principal's office. Her parents never answered the phone home, however. Too busy to even discipline her, too busy to even tell her how much of a disappointment she was. They hired private tutors, therapists, anyone that could get them out of doing any actual parenting.

When she became Ashe, however, she thought to herself - _This time it'll be different. I'll make my family and hold them close._ She met Jesse McCree, and he made her laugh. That seemingly-permanent scowl on her face loosened up, and she felt herself relax around him. Despite the difference in backgrounds, they were very much the same - both ignored by the world, both desperate to be somebody besides nobody. Ashe never had any siblings, not even real close friends, but Jesse felt like a brother to her. The trouble they got up to made her feel more alive than she ever remembered feeling. Together they struck up an idea to bring other people into this - outcasts like them, forgotten by the world around them with no one else in their lives. They'd be each other's family, and they'd leave their mark on the world. Their family would be known as the Deadlock Gang.

Ashe had never felt so scared in her life when she heard he might be dead. The operation was supposed to be a simple one, and when Jesse had left, he gave her that trademark wink and tip of his hat and told her not to worry. Ashe had rolled her eyes as if the idea of worrying about him was ridiculous. When she heard that Overwatch agents had infiltrated their team and compromised the mission, she felt her blood go cold. Several of her people were killed, but there was no news on McCree. Ashe had never really known the feeling of fearing for someone else's life, but she did then. She had told herself over and over, _He's too good to have died, he had to have survived. If he was captured, we can break him out._

Ashe drained all her resources, exhausted every option to find out anything on him. Finally, after months of digging, he had been spotted - alive and well, from the looks of it, but working with a group that called themselves Blackwatch. At first, Ashe thought he must be held against his will, forced to work with this group in order to spare his own life. No way would Jesse have left the Deadlock Gang willingly, left their family, left _her_.

But he had. He was working with them willingly, wanting to "atone" for the sins he committed.

The sins _they_ committed.

First thing Ashe felt was blankness, a sort of numb disbelief. Jesse, her friend, her brother, the only person on the planet who really knew her. He knew her biggest fear was losing the family she had desperately made herself, and he had willingly walked away from her and everyone else he called family. Ashe wasn't stupid, and neither was Jesse - if he had the choice between prison and Blackwatch, he could have chosen prison and the Deadlock Gang would have seen him freed at any cost. The choice to leave the gang wasn't forced - it was his.

Next thing she felt was anger. Boiling, scorching, blisteringly-hot anger. The one person she had opened up to so much, the one person she trusted above all else had not only abandoned her but scorned her and her people. Now he worked directly against them, doling out his bullshit-brand of "justice". Would he see them all burn to put his fragile little do-gooder heart at ease?

_No._ She'd burn him first.

Ashe set her jaw and felt her resolve harden like stone. McCree was a traitor, and Deadlock had a strict policy when it came to betrayal. She tore their photos down the middle, cut him out of their memories as well as her heart. She issued an order that Jesse McCree, if captured, be brought to her so she could show him and the world what happened when she was wronged.

 

* * *

 

Years had passed when Bob came up to her one day when she was in a particularly sour mood, thumbing some scrap of paper in his giant robotic hands almost nervously.

"What is it, Bob?" Ashe asked a little impatiently, keeping her annoyance only mild for him.

His glowing green eyes shuttered in a blink down to the paper, then back up to Ashe. Very tentatively, he handed it to her.

Ashe swiped it, but started slightly at what it was, eyes widening. One of the old pictures of her playing poker - Bob's hands could be seen to the left, and to the right...

Carefully taped back into the picture was Jesse, a smirk on his face and his gun in hand.

Ashe tilted her head slightly, feeling something twitch at the corner of her lips. She ran a thumb over his face slowly, swallowing a little.

Brothers and sisters fought, right? But they could also make up sometimes. That was what Ashe thought, anyway, as she gingerly taped the picture to her bike, feeling emotion tighten her throat.

Family _could_ be made, she figured with a slight sniff, looking to Bob who was (no doubt respectively) looking off to the horizon.

But it couldn't be unmade.


End file.
